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President-elect Donald Trump’s visit to the Notre Dame Cathedral marks his return to the geopolitical stage just weeks before he’s set to return to the White House
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President-elect Donald Trump has returned to the world stage for the first time since his election victory last month, as he joined global leaders at the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Ahead of the ceremony, Trump met with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on Saturday.
“The world is going a little crazy right now,” the president-elect told reporters as he shook hands with Macron. “We’ll be talking about that.”
The visit comes just six weeks before Trump returns to the White House in January.
On Friday, Trump threw his support behind Pete Hegseth, his nominee for secretary of defense, blaming the “fake news” for the backlash against the former Fox News host.
Vice President-elect JD Vance echoed his comments on X and during a visit to North Carolina, when asked about rumors that Senator Joni Ernst was being floated as an alternative nominee.
Hegseth much of the week on Capitol hill trying to drum up support for his confirmation as allegations concerning sexual harassment and alcohol continue to dog him on top of concerns about his views on women in combat.
Donald Trump’s campaign pledged to be a champion for the working class. He ran campaign ads vowing to lift up the “hardest working citizens.” The Republican National Convention even put the spotlight on “everyday Americans.”
But his incoming administration reflects a government run by billionaires, stuffed with Wall Street fixtures, investment bankers, real estate developers and oil executives, all within reach of power to slash services that millions of poor and vulnerable Americans depend on.
Alex Woodward reports:
The incoming administration will be the wealthiest in history, with more than a dozen ultra-rich nominees for critical agencies and major diplomatic roles
President-elect Donald Trump’s team is considering the possibility of withholding massive research grants from “woke” schools they claim lack academic freedom.
Trump’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a physician and economist at Stanford, reportedly wants to target so-called “cancel culture” at a number of top progressive universities, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Those with knowledge of Bhattacharya’s thinking told the newspaper that he’s considering linking the doling out of billions in federal research grants to a measure of “academic freedom” on campuses and punishing those that apparently don’t adequately embrace perspectives championed by conservatives.
Read more here
Those vying for a high-security clearance position in Trump’s administration go through rounds of interviews with a team of MAGA loyalists who question the perspectives’ allegiance to the incoming president, according to a recent New York Times report.
Those questions include whether they supported the most recent three presidential elections, their opinion of January 6, 2021, and if the 2020 election was stolen, people who interviewed for jobs or were involved in the process told the Times.
Perspectives who said they affirmed President Biden won the 2020 election or denounced violence at the Capitol on January 6 told the New York Times they did not get the job.
Charlie Kirk, the right-wing social media influencer, is said to be among those conducting the so-called ‘loyalty test’.
Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House Press Secretary, declined to confirm the truth of the loyalty test to the Times but said, “President Trump will continue to appoint highly qualified men and women who have the talent, experience, and necessary skill sets to make America great again.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the transition between the Biden administration and Trump’s incoming national security team has been “professional”, “substantive” and “good.”
“It has been professional, it has been substantive, and frankly, it has been good,” Sullivan said at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday.
“Obviously, we don’t see eye to eye on every issue, and that’s no secret to anybody, but there is a deep conviction on the part of the incoming national security team that we are dealing with, including my successor, and on our part, directed from President Biden, that it is our job, on behalf of the American people, to make sure this is a smooth transition.”
A federal appeals court has turned down TikTok’s challenge of a quickly approaching forced sale or nationwide ban of the immensely popular app in the United States, but the company could soon ask the Supreme Court to step in.
Friday’s decision from the Washington DC-based appellate court sided with the Department of Justice, which has argued that the federal government has the authority to restrict or ban the app on grounds that it allegedly poses a national security risk if its China-based parent company ByteDance exposes Americans’ data or manipulates what they see.
TikTok argued that the ban infringes on its users’ First Amendment protections, but the three-judge panel agreed that the government “has offered persuasive evidence” that a law passed by Congress to potentially ban the app is “narrowly tailored to protect national security.”
Read more here
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump praised the Prince of Wales for “doing a fantastic job” after the pair shared a warm greeting in Paris on Saturday night.
Prince William stepped in for his father, King Charles, to join world leaders for the ceremonial reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral five years after it was devastated by fire.
His presence was at the request of the government, which hopes a meeting between the prince and Trump will help form a platform for a relationship between Britain and the US.
The pair first greeted at the ceremony inside Notre Dame, when Trump patted Prince William on the shoulder before the pair shook hands.
After the service, they then went to the residence of the British ambassador for a meeting, with the prince seen standing in the foyer as Trump arrived.
On greeting again, Trump turned to reporters and said “Wow, what a nice group”. He then gestured to the prince and said: “Good man, this one.”
Prince William last met the 78-year-old in 2019 when the then-president made a state visit to the U.K.
President-elect Trump is expected to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni tonight at a reception dinner for the Notre Dame reopening ceremony.
The two will meet in a “private pull aside” at that the dinner, hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, a source familiar with the plans told CNN.
Meloni was elected this summer – the first far-right government elected to leadership since the era of Mussolini.
Scottish actor Brian Cox has said he will “try to spend as much time here” in the UK as he can following the results of the US presidential election.
The Succession star, 78, has been outspoken about his views on President-elect Donald Trump and called him a “monster” while he was a guest on Channel 4’s live coverage of the US election last month.
Tom Murray reports:
‘We’re in for a pretty rough old four years coming up,’ ‘Succession’ star said
Elon Musk spent over $250m on political donations to help Donald Trump retake the White House this year, new federal filings show.
Federal Election Commission documents published Thursday revealed that Musk handed over more than $230m to the America PAC — a political action committee that the Tesla billionaire created and which ultimately grew into a vital fundraising organ for the Trump campaign.
In the few weeks before Election Day, Musk made three separate $25m donations to America PAC, the filings show.
Read on:
The FEC filings reveal big payments to his America PAC, the mysterious RBG PAC and other Republican candidates
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